In U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,930,600 and 5,477,941 Kumar and Kumar have presented the state of the art in intelligent on-board rail/wheel lubrication systems for railroad use. Those comments continue to apply and the disclosures of the 4,930,600 and 5,477,941 patents are incorporated by reference herein. They showed a method in which one or two lubricants are applied to the rail by an applicator after the last axle of the last locomotive has passed. There are situations where the lubricants may be applied differently for better advantage. The present invention is a new method of achieving such an advantage for both top of rail (TOR) lubrication and rail gage side (RAGS) lubrication.